Friday, April 1, 2016

Adolescents as Perpetrators of Aggression within the Family

Although family violence
perpetrated by juveniles has been acknowledged as a potentially serious form of
violence for over 30 years, scientific studies have been limited to examining
the incidence and form of home violence. The present study examined the
prevalence of family aggression as perpetrated by youths; we examined groups
drawn from clinic-referred and forensic samples. Two audits of case files were
conducted to systematically document aggression perpetrated by referred youths
toward their family members. The purpose of the first audit was fourfold: i) to
identify the incidence of the perpetration of family aggression among clinical
and forensic samples; ii) to identify whether there were any reports of weapon
use during aggressive episodes; iii) to identify the target of family
aggression (parents or siblings); and iv) to identify the form of aggression
perpetrated (verbal or physical). The second audit aimed to replicate the
findings and to show that the results were not due to differences in multiple
deprivation indices, clinical diagnosis of disruptive behavior disorders, and
placement into alternative care. A sampling strategy was designed to audit the
case notes of 25 recent forensic Child and Adolescent Mental Health Service
(CAMHS) cases and 25 demographically similar clinic-referred CAMHS cases in the
first audit; and 35 forensic cases and 35 demographically similar
clinic-referred CAMHS cases in the second audit. Using ordinal chi-square, the
forensic sample (audit 1=64%; audit 2=82.9%) had greater instances of family
violence than the clinical sample (audit 1=32%; audit 2=28.6%). They were more
likely to use a weapon (audit 1=69%; audit 2=65.5%) compared to the clinical
sample (audit 1 and 2=0%). Examining only the aggressive groups, there was more
perpetration of aggression toward parents (audit 1, forensic=92%, clinical=75%;
audit 2, forensic=55.17%, clinical=40%) than toward siblings (audit 1,
forensic=43%, clinical=50%; audit 2, forensic=27.58%, clinical=30%). Based on
these findings, we would urge professionals who work within the child mental
health, particularly the forensic area, to systematically collect reports of
aggression perpetrated toward family members.